My Top Ten Albums of 2016

Well it's that time of year again where I try to come up with a list of my favorite albums of the year. Of course I wasn't able to get everything I wanted, after all a guy only has so much money to spend on music. But here is my list of favorites for 2016.

1. Dean Ween - The Deaner Album
The first solo album by Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo of Ween. This is such a fun brown album to listen to. This got the most spins of any album I bought this year and it only came out in October. Brilliant!!!

2. Ween - God Ween Satan Live
A live album that was recorded Sept. 14, 2001 in their hometown of New Hope, Pennsylvania. This album is the band playing their entire debut 1990 album GodWeenSatan. This is the way this album was meant to be heard, full band backing up Dean and Gene. Awesome!!!

3. Bob Dylan - The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert!
Another live album in my top ten picks. I'm a sucker for anything Dylan, and this live set is amazing. This was the first tour Dylan did with The Band backing him up. First half of this double disc is just Bob, second half is Dylan with The Band. Love this whole album but it's the second half that blows my mind!

4. Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor's Guide To Earth
An old school country album with a whole lot of soul!

5. David Bowie - Blackstar
Released a few days before his passing, an incredible album!

6. Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker
As the title says, a dark poetic album yet beautiful!

7. Tragically Hip - Man Machine Poem
Another thinking man's album from The Hip!

8. Wilco - Schmilco
An interesting release, took a few listens to really enjoy it, but have now played it enough to make my top ten.

9. Against Me! - Shape Shift With Me
Need some punk in the course of a year!

10. Margo Price - Midwest Farmer's Daughter
An old school sounding honky tonk country album!

My Top Ten Concerts of 2016

This is always tough to come up with my favorite live shows of 2016. But here we go. All shows in Edmonton unless otherwise noted.

1. The Tragically Hip @ Rogers K-Rock Centre August 20th in Kingston, Ontario
What can I say about this show other then I was a very lucky guy to be able to attend what may be The Hip's last show ever, in their hometown to boot. An incredibly emotional show.

2. The Tragically Hip @ Rexall Place July 28th
Again this show was super emotional. I scored row 6 on the floor for this show the day before the event. An amazing performance by Gordie and the boys. Have never shed so many tears at a show in my life.

3. The Tragically Hip @ Rexall Place July 30th
Yes, the top three shows of the year for me were all Hip shows. This show was extra special because not only would or could be the last time The Hip play Edmonton. But I also had some great friends travel from BC to attend this show. Good times!!!

4. The Yawpers @ Freemason Hall October 7th part of the Up and Downtown Music Festival
This is a band from Colorado that I have been listening to for just over a year and finally got the chance to see them live when they opened for Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Plant. The Yawpers were so amazing live, full of high energy and gritty rock n' roll. So good!

5. Fantastic Negrito @ Heritage Amphitheatre July 23rd in Hawrelak Park part of the Interstellar Rodeo Festival.
A band I knew very little about before this show. Fantastic Negrito were the first band to hit the stage on day two of this festival. Am I ever glad I got there early as this band was the highlight of the festival for me. Xavier Dphrepaulezz whom fronts the band was very entertaining and full of energy. An amazing live band.

6. Jason Isbell @ Edmonton Folk Fest August 5th in Gallagher Park.
Have been a huge fan of Jason for years now and he blew me away closing out the Friday night of the Folk Fest. He rocked the hell out of the venue. Great great show.

7. The Temperance Movement @ Union Hall March 1st
A British blues/rock band, who rocked Union Hall. Reminded me of Free, Black Crowes and Rolling Stones old school classic rock sound. Lead singer Phil Campbell has a great voice and full of energy, kind of like a spastic Joe Cocker. Loved their show.

8. Mike Plume @ The Almanac March 24th
A great show by local singer/songwriter in a small intimate venue. Mike always puts on a great show. This show was special to me because it was the day before my birthday and I got to take my Dad to the show as well. An amazing solo show by Mike.

9. Sturgill Simpson @ Union Hall August 14th
An old school country show with lots of soul and attitude.

10. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds @ TD Echo Beach in Toronto, Ontario July 10th
Because I never got to see Oasis in concert this was going to be the next best thing. I really enjoyed the show, it was at a great outdoor venue and the price was right too. Good times!!!

This was tough picking my top ten shows of 2016. I usually just list my favorite shows in no particular order, but changed it up this year. It was fucking hard to pick just ten and in order.

Here are other bands I saw this year that deserve a shout out too.
Black Sabbath, Joel Plaskett, Danny Michel, Fred Penner, Voivod, Jr. Gone Wild and Margo Price.

Looking forward to a busy concert year in 2017. Good times!!!

Seven Inch Sunday (Bob Dylan)

Today's seven inch single is a 45 I picked up today for a dollar. It is a Bob Dylan single featuring "Like A Rolling Stone" from 1965 and "Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35" from 1966. After looking at the Discogs website, I see this was released in 1997. This release Hall Of Fame / Disques D'or is a series and not a label, the label would be Columbia Records of course. It is a Canadian release and series.

Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone.

Bob Dylan - Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35.

Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35 from LittleDesertFlower on Vimeo.

Gig Poster Video

Thought I would re-post a video I made six years ago. This video features a bunch of gig posters from concerts I have been to. The music in this video is from the Drive-By Truckers, a song called "Let There Be Rock" from their album Southern Rock Opera. Hope you enjoy.

Danny Michel Live in Edmonton Dec.2nd 2016

On Friday night my buddy Buzzard and I went to the Danny Michel sold out show at St. Basil's Cultural Centre here in Edmonton, this show was put on by the New Moon Folk Club. This was my fourth time seeing Danny Michel in concert, and second time this year seeing him.

Danny Michel is a singer song-writer from Waterloo, Ontario, not only is he a musician but he is also a producer and filmmaker, hell he could also be a part time comedian, some of his between song banter are down right hilarious.

Danny did two sets on this night which made for an almost two hour show. And again he put on a great show to the 400 attendees. Danny played a great set of songs that included fan favorites like "Feather, Fur & Fun", "Wish Willy", and it was before this song that Danny told a great story that he tells often but is still funny every time he tells it. Other songs played were "Tennessee Tobacco", "Sad And Beautiful World", "What Colour are You?", and from his latest album Matadora he played "Nobody Rules You", "Click Click", "Good Old Days" and "Samantha In The Sky With Diamonds". Of course that's not the only songs played but the ones that come to mind. Danny also played a brand new song "24,000 Horses" which will be on an album called Khlebnikoz to be released on January 20th 2017.

This album Khlebnikoz was recorded while Danny Michel was on an 18 day expedition with Canadian astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield and others aboard the Russian ice breaker Kapitan Khlebnikov in the arctic. You can read and watch video about this trip by clicking here. This album is going to be very influenced by Russian music, as Danny not only played a song off the album at the show, but he also played a little clip of it from his phone that night at the show.

All and all this was an amazing show by Danny as per usual. Good times!!!

This picture here was taken when I ran in to Danny Michel at the Ottawa airport the day after I had seen The Hip play in Kingston and the day before Danny was to head north for his Arctic expedition. He was nice enough to autograph this for me after the show.

Seven Inch Sunday (The Tragically Hip)

Today's seven inch single is by The Tragically Hip. This was a Black Friday Record Store Day release. There were only 2000 of these pressed on green vinyl, with each one numbered, mine being #1166. The two songs on this single are "Tired As Fuck" from their 2016 release Man Machine Poem. The B side is a previously unavailable US radio version of the song "At The Hundredth Meridian" from their 1992 album Fully Completely.

Side A - Tired As Fuck

Side B - At The Hundredth Meridian

The Dungarees / Mike Plume Live in Edmonton Nov.12th 2016

Last Saturday Cuz, Buzzard and I went to the Mike Plume and The Dungarees show at the Needle Vinyl Tavern here in Edmonton. The only reason I wanted to go to this show was to see Mike Plume. This would be my tenth time seeing Mike in concert and first time I have seen him open for someone. As for The Dungarees, I had heard there name around recently having opened for Dwight Yoakam and being in the running for the Project Wild contest.

Well, you know what Mom always said, if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything, so I will pretty much take that road on this review. This show was billed as Mike Plume with The Dungarees, so I figured it was a Mike Plume solo show, but much to my surprise after Mike opened the show with one song solo, three musicians that I had never seen or heard before took to the stage to back-up Mike. What the hell was this, this wasn't Mike's usual band of Ern on drums and Ben on bass, instead Mike had the Blues Puppy Trio backing him up which is Sean Riquelme on guitar, Rob Newhook on bass and rounding out the trio Riley Chernoff on drums. Nice to see Mike giving the kids a chance. But to me, I want to see the real Mike Plume Band. The kids did a decent job, but it wasn't your usual Mike Plume show, his setlist was much different then usual, not one of his better song selections for the show, but having said that he did do some songs you don't get to see him play very often "Sweet Oblivion", "Remembrance Day", "Five Crow Silver". But he left a lot of his more popular songs off his setlist. The guys playing with Mike seemed to really be enjoying themselves and making the best of their opportunity. All and all his hour long opening set wasn't one of the better shows I have seen him play.

Mike Plume.

The headliner of the evening was local country band The Dungarees. I knew nothing about the band but gave then the chance to impress me. Well, they didn't impress me. Their music to me is just middle of the road commercial country music made for radio. They are good at what they do, good musicians and all, just not my cup of tea. However I did like when they had Mike Plume join them on stage for three songs, two of them Plume songs and then a cover of "The Road Goes On Forever" a song wrote by Robert Earl Keen and made popular by the country supergroup The Highwaymen. What was funny about Mike doing this song was that he sang the whole song while reading the lyrics from his cellphone, can't say I have ever seen that done before. It actually sounded pretty damn good. It was after the three songs with Mike that we bailed on the rest of The Dungarees set. I was also surprised about the small turnout for the show. Nonetheless a fun night out. Good times!!!

In concert news...Mike Plume is scheduled to be playing The Needle Vinyl Tavern again on Thursday January 26th 2017.

Seven Inch Saturday (Jack White)

Today's seven inch single is from Jack White, this single includes the two songs Side A - Alone In My Room (Demo) and Side B - Entitlement. Both these songs were on his 2014 solo album Lazaretto. But on this release which came with the Third Man Records Vault Package #20 both songs are demos.

RIP Leonard Cohen 1934-2016

I woke up this morning to the sad news of the passing of Canadian music legend Leonard Cohen. Leonard was 82 years of age and had just released his latest album "You Want It Darker" in October.

I was lucky enough to have seen Leonard Cohen in concert twice here in Edmonton. The first time was in 2009 and again in 2012. Both shows were incredible. To read my reviews of both shows click here and here.

Rest In Peace Leonard Cohen.

Leonard Cohen performing "Closing Time" in Edmonton April 25th 2009.

My favorite Leonard Cohen quote - "Does anybody have a cigarette? I'm looking forward to that first smoke. I've been looking forward to [it] for about 30 years."

Seven Inch Sunday (Vinnie Vincent Invasion)

Today's seven inch single is from the Vinnie Vincent Invasion, Vinnie being a guitar player in KISS between 1982-1984. This is a single I received in the mail back in 1986. Not sure why I got this, maybe because I was a part of the KISS Army at the time. But I'm not complaining, cause it's a pretty cool single.

It's a pink single featuring two songs from at the time the forthcoming Vinne Vincent Invasion album. Side A features the song Boyz Are Gonna Rock and Side 1 is Animal. Ya the labels are fucked on this single.

I often wonder whatever become of Vinnie Vincent.

Side A.

Side 1.